Drinking Urine

Does The Secret To Health Lie In Things Like Yellow Snow?

According to urine therapy websites, there is nothing urine won’t cure: birth marks, broken bones, AIDS, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and a bunch of other ailments that have plagued humans over the years. Some enthusiasts see urine as the “water of life” and a divine manifestation of cosmic intelligence, causing instant enlightenment upon ingestion. With such wondrous properties, it’s baffling that science hasn’t spent more time and effort considering it as a medicine.

Urinophiles claim that the medical community has been fully aware of urine’s wondrous efficacy for decades but have conspired to keep it a secret since there wasn’t any monetary gain in it. In reality, constructing any type of double-blind clinical study to validate pee’s effects would be an obviously difficult and unethical project. Researchers from the University of Newcastle, Australia, proposed that one possible explanation for urine’s perceived health benefits might be its melatonin content.

Morning pee has a high concentration of melatonin, a pineal hormone that has numerous health benefits. Melatonin in pee is not physiologically active, but it is proposed that the low pH of stomach acid might revert it back into its active form and restore and increase plasma melatonin levels. Melatonin is known as the darkness hormone and is produced naturally while you sleep. If you want to reap the benefits of melatonin, get more sleep. As a nutritional supplement, pee is never a good idea. As a recreational drug, however, drinking pee does have some legitimacy. As evidence, consider Santa Claus and his flying reindeer.

Santa flies high

Coca-Cola’s advertising campaign in the 1930s may have solidified Santa’s image as the jolly rotund guy we know today, but Santa’s true origins stem from the traditions of the pee-drinking reindeer herders of Northern Europe. Reindeers are fond of eating fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria), the red-and-white toadstools often associated with Christmas, because they contain compounds that are hallucinogenic and euphoric. Reindeer digestive systems are able to metabolize the more poisonous components of the toadstool, leaving urine with the psychoactive elements of the mushroom intact.

The Sami people of Northern Europe would regularly feed fly agaric to reindeers and collect their urine to get a high similar to LSD. Under the hallucinogenic effects of reindeer piss, the Sami thought their reindeer were flying through space, looking down on the world. When the first missionaries reached Lapland, they heard stories of flying reindeer and integrated them in the existing Christmas folklore of Western cultures. The practice of drinking reindeer urine was reserved for those who had the time to collect the mushroom, which meant that the poorer class would drink the urine of the better off, which was collected in bowls or skin bags. Evidence suggests that the drug’s hallucinogens remained active even after having passed though five or six people. Some scholars maintain that this is the true origin of the expression “to get pissed.”

The Koryak shaman (holy men) who collected fly agaric in Siberia wore special attire consisting of red-and-white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots. They would gather the mushrooms from under sacred evergreen trees and collect them in large sacks. They would then enter their tepee-like homes called “yurts” through the smoke hole at the top, carrying a sack full of dried fly agaric. Once inside, they would share their gift with those gathered inside, and then leave back through the smoke hole. Sound familiar? From climbing into chimneys and gift giving to dressing in red and white, and flying through the air with reindeers, storytellers and travelers fused the ancient customs of shamanistic pee-drinking rituals with other pagan traditions, and these were integrated by early Christians into our modern Christmas traditions. Santa does exist, and he’s a pusher.

Is urine poisonous?

In a nutshell, no, urine is not poisonous. But just because something isn’t toxic doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Toenail clippings aren’t toxic either, but no one wants them in their food. Bacteria that lines the urethra can contaminate urine and pose a health risk, which is why doctors and urine therapy practitioners use mid-stream urine. The first few seconds of urination flushes out the bacteria. Urine can also contain harmful substances in those who have taken medication or drugs, as we just learned from flying reindeer. Salts and minerals in urine may pose a hazard as well, especially if the urine is from someone who is dehydrated.

If you’re stuck in a survival situation and are dying of thirst, drinking your pee might make the situation worse. Re-ingesting the salts your kidneys were trying to get rid of will only exacerbate your dehydration. This is why several survival guides, including the U.S. Army Field Manual FM 21-76, advises against drinking your own urine — even when there is no other fluid around. Nevertheless, urine drinking was documented as saving the life of Aron Ralston, the mountain climber best known for having survived several days with his arm trapped under a boulder. His story was the subject of the 2010 movie 127 Hours.

Your kidneys know what they’re doing. You can trust them to eliminate stuff your body doesn’t need or can’t store, and retain what is useful and necessary. Drinking pee is like telling your kidneys that they need to double-check their work. No medical evidence supports urine as an effective treatment for any illness, so follow your mom’s advice and use your stream to write your initials in the snow. If reindeer appear, call the police.